


Seasons Change

by Ms31x129



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s08e16 Three Words, F/M, Post-Episode: s08e15 DeadAlive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-12 07:55:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17463590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ms31x129/pseuds/Ms31x129
Summary: Charting an alternate path will lead to a much different ending.





	1. Three Words

Three Words

Mulder wouldn’t tell Scully the things he experienced. He wouldn’t tell anyone. Certainly not the multiple Doctors and Psychologists assigned to him. It was better to just push everything back – box it up – lock it up, the memories, the hallucinations – the physical and mental torture to some portion of his mind where everything could stay hidden.

Maybe he would be able to unlock the box sometime, but not now everything was too raw… he just couldn’t.

Scully was sitting by his bedside running her fingers through his hair, he kept his eyes closed and tried not to flinch. Every touch was like knives dragging across his skin, sense memories – now the torture begins. Before and after each new physical pain it was like they knew where his mind would go - to Scully - he would think about all the tender moments he’d had with Scully. He wasn’t sure when it happened the 10th, 25th, 50th time – he started to hate those memories more than the physical torture.

Mulder couldn’t stand the contact any longer, he needed her to stop or he thought he’d scream. He opened his eyes. “Water…please,” his voice gruff and raspy. 

Scully smiled at him, her eyes seemed to constantly be wet like she was on the verge of crying – she needed comfort, but right now he wasn’t the one to give it to her. Did he want her to turn to someone else? That thought caused his heart to almost stop – No! For a moment he thought he was going to throw up, he swallowed, and the sensation faded. She turned to pour him a cup of water as he struggled to prop himself up, he was still weak his muscles felt rubbery, his arms were shaking by the time she handed him the water.

She never said anything about her pregnancy, was he supposed to ask? Wasn’t he? Should he guess? Did she try IVF again … without him, is that how bad she wanted a child? The thought hurt - it more than hurt he felt gutted just like the blade that had sliced open his sternum, the Alien Bounty Hunter looking on as his blood sprayed and he grew hoarse from screaming.

His thoughts of fatherhood, a family, had been hazy and indistinct for most of his life. What kind of father could he be? His family experience didn’t lend to stability nor did his work life - a child needed that… and love - a child needed love above all else.

He didn’t allow himself to travel those future thoughts, paths of marriage, a wife, children … a complete family. That is until Emily with her big blue eyes so like her mother’s he’d held Scully’s sick child in his arms and then he’d held a vial that may have saved her life …or not. Only it was not his choice to make, he had no claim to Emily, but for just a moment he wished he did.

It was after Emily’s death that he sometimes had dreams of children Scully rocking a baby boy with blue eyes and his chestnut brown hair or a little girl with his hazel eyes and bouncing reddish-blonde curls standing at the top of a slide in a park as she begged in her little girl squeal. “Daddy! Catch me!”

He closed his eyes against those traitorous tears. When he looked at Scully, she seemed quite far along at least from what he remembered from the pamphlets at the Fertility Clinic when he’d given his donation, but the IVF had failed. And that memory - when they’d clung to each other all through the night just after she’d told him the results - that had been one of the memories his mind had played over and over. Would it ever be a memory that didn’t make him break out in a cold sweat? They’d made love that night and others, he needed that box to be locked tight, but right now all those memories caused were despair. He needed to get control of his life back. 

Could she have been pregnant before Bellefleur? But how? Questions he was too scared to ask with answers he didn’t know if he wanted to hear.

Scully told him all about the other abductees, Gary, Teresa … and Billy Miles. He wasn’t sure where he fit in he’d been buried under the ground not quite dead, not alive exactly either. He wasn’t going to dwell on that, but he wondered just the same if when the spring thaw hit – would he have clawed his way out of the grave no longer fully human. He shudders with the thought, Scully notices. What part of the ultimate plan was he supposed accomplish, what was Super Alien Soldier Mulder supposed to do and to whom? That question haunted him too.

“Mulder?... Are you okay?” Mulder gives her a look, she shakes her head nothing about this is okay. “Mulder… are you ready to go home? Your Doctors said that everything else you need to do can be done on an outpatient basis.”

Mulder swallows the last of his water and crumples the paper cup. “Yeah let’s blow this popsicle stand.” He hopes his customary smirk is in evidence - the scars on his face still visible and his cheeks feel like the skin is ripping every time he attempts to smile. Will he ever be able to smile again?

Scully smiles, her voice with just the slightest tremble. “Okay… I, I’ll just go get the paperwork. I’ll be right back.”

As Scully leaves the room Mulder looks down at his hand and the cup he crushed. His quest, The X-Files - his life… a future with Scully… all his dreams seem destroyed now…


	2. Three Words, First Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Help me…Scully help me’ he murmured curling into a ball on the floor, but he’d sent her home – he sent her away and now he was all alone…

Three Words, First Night

Mulder tries to control his breathing, the seatbelt in Scully’s car – the feeling of being restrained – is taking all his willpower not to scream. He hears Scully talking to him, her voice fading in and out, he concentrates harder. What did she say?

“Mulder, we’re here. At my apartment.” 

She’s reaching to unlock his seatbelt, he shakes his head almost violently.

“NO!” She draws away from him, pressing against the car door. “Um… Scully … I think,” he licks his dry lips. “I’d like to go to my place … unless, I… do I still have an apartment?”

He tries not to notice the hurt in her eyes. “Yes - Mulder you do,” she shakes her head a little and turns the key in the ignition. “I can take you there if that’s what you want.”

“I do.” He whispers, but his thoughts are conflicted. 

He wants to be at her apartment with the soothing smells, soft blankets, pillows and the bed with her in it. He wants to touch her and for her to touch him like before, no – he doesn’t, he’s scarred and scared. ‘Don’t take me there, Scully! Don’t listen to me… I don’t want to be alone. I need to be alone.’

His apartment feels the same; yet it doesn’t. Mulder tries out some banter he might have used before, she tries to express her feelings, but it’s more awkward than their first meeting in the basement so long ago. He wants to yell, “GET OUT Scully!” But he doesn’t, mentally he turns the key in the lock holding back the memories of pain, of blood, of his own screams. Click-click, click-click over and over - he can’t even hold a conversation, he hears the buzz of the saw blade and a memory of Scully’s moans as he strokes inside her chanting his name ‘Mulder’… click-click…

She is walking towards him as he sits on his desk. He quickly moves before she can reach him – touch him – the coffee table between them now. She notices a slightly wild look in his eyes, panic on his face and he takes a small step back creating more distance between them.

“Mulder you have to eat to regain your strength. Why don’t you rest – sleep if you can and I’ll come back a little later with dinner… Okay?” Her voice had dropped slightly, soothing, calming.

“Okay.” Mulder replies before walking into his bedroom. 

Mulder gets into bed he finds one of his dress shirts under the pillow, the pillow smells like Scully. Had she been sleeping here – in his bed? The thought and Scully’s scent all around him once calming, invigorating … arousing do nothing now…sleep doesn’t come.

After they eat dinner with very little conversation, Scully leaves, Mulder knows she doesn’t want to, but he insists. He is exhausted and it isn’t long before he is back in bed the phone in his hand waiting for Scully’s call. He made her promise to call when she got back to her apartment he had to know she was safe.

Scully arrived at her apartment and called Mulder. “I’m here.” 

“Good…G’Night Scully,” echoed in her ears. 

It wasn’t long until the baby started his unending kicking. The baby was relentless, Scully thought, just like his father, she knew the baby was a boy – she felt it, he’d been kicking her for the last ten minutes, some were painful and sharp enough to make her gasp. Her hands caressed her abdomen slow strokes hoping he’d calm and she could sleep. It was hours before he calmed enough and she could sleep.

Very little time goes by after Mulder succumbs to Morpheus and he is assaulted by dreams. Horrible dreams of physical torture, metal arms piercing and spreading his cheeks. He remembers multiple figures looking at him they almost seem perplexed by something, something they were doing to him that either should be working or wasn’t. He didn’t know.

Suddenly he woke jumping out of bed tearing all his clothes off – off – off - off – nothing touching him he didn’t want anything touching him. He huddled in the corner of his bedroom shivering he was cold so cold … ‘Help me…Scully help me’ he murmured curling into a ball on the floor, but he’d sent her home – he sent her away and now he was all alone…

Across town Scully was huddled under every blanket in her closet, the baby had started twitching inside her womb – the strangest sensation. Her skin suddenly freezing, stumbling from bed she grabbed two blankets and a comforter and crawled back into bed huddled in a ball underneath them all. Why couldn’t she get warm?

**Author's Note:**

> Several scenes through out some of the episodes of Season 8 & 9 and how I would have like the original run to end.


End file.
